Category Archives: Chinese ancestry

In 21st Century Australia, discrimination based on race, creed, gender or sexual preference, age or physical capability is prohibited by law. Most of us regard this as progress, as evidence of Australia’s commitment to basic human rights, an acknowledgement of the cultural benefits of tolerance and diversity. In colonial Australia, British assumptions about race – the inferiority of the Oriental, the inability of ‘whites’ to labour in the searing heat of the tropics – gave way to an economic imperative: populate or …Continue reading

The story of Chinese immigrants is the story of every Australian, whether the journey was in the 19th or 20th or 21st Century, a voyage of three months or 20 hours by jet – the differences are of degree only. Chinese immigration to Australia was rare before the mid 1800s when gold was discovered in Victoria. Thousands of Chinese responded to the lure of mountains of gold awaiting anyone willing to work long hours panning and digging and living a …Continue reading